Just kidding. Coach Altman’s efforts to shut-up his players are constrained by the First Amendment and the long and honorable tradition of American athletes using the Star-Spangled Banner and its words about “Land of the Free and the home of the Brave” as the right time, place and manner for protest. If he were free to let his preferences run wild, I have no idea if the Duck’s Altman would do more than threaten to bench his unpaid student-athletes, much less jail them as Turkey’s Erdogan is trying to do:
Turkish Dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, from ESPN:
Duck Basketball Coach Dana Altman, from the Oregonian:
A flamboyant or cheeky headline is one thing. A lie is quite another.
My apologies, President Erdogan. I’d forgotten your dislike of satire. I beg your court’s forgiveness.
I have to wonder if you’d be so pro-first amendment free speech rights if one of these student athletes leaned right? Maybe even took the step from Bernie Sanders-socialist to National Socialist? Would you still support their right to express themselves while representing our school then?
Of course I would be. Although it bugged me when Marcus Mariota led on-field prayers, that was his right. I’d be more upset if one of the coaches came out publicly as a white supremacist and I’d make a UO Senate resolution to condemn him, but I’d argue against any university discipline.